Toast of Love
by thecolouryes
Summary: April 25, 2112, 5:57 pm EST: A small café in New York City, the site of the first completely official date that we all knew was coming between oldest friends. Third in the "Toasts" collection. Established Teslen.


**Toast of Love**

**Summary:  
><strong>_**April 25, 2112, 5:57 pm EST: A small café in New York City, the site of the first completely official date that we all knew was coming between oldest friends. Third in the "Toasts" collection. Established Teslen.**_

**Disclaimer: No, nothing's changed, Sanctuary doesn't belong to me. Even the muse for the lovey-dovey in this doesn't belong to me. It's the fault of my lovely boyfriend. **

**A/N: Surprisingly, seeing my boyfriend after I had written the first half or so of this fic succeeded in making the rest of it much more lovey-dovey which is good, because it wasn't nearly lovey-dovey enough to deserve the title before that.**

**FINALLY we got the Teslen established. And kudos to anyone who realises why this is in the twenty-seventh year of their relationship.**

**(2236 words)**

There was no one to lay the blame, because they were both too involved in staring into one another's eyes. He was grinning like a loon; he couldn't help it, and her expression wasn't exactly completely benign, either. In some wonderfully skewed turn of events, he had become her long-awaited lover, and not just her oldest friend, and because of this, Helen Magnus was unable to look at the vampire across the small café table from her without smiling shyly like a young girl on her first date.

And, barring explosion – which was the twenty-second century's way of preserving the age-old superstition of asking for luck – this would be the first date she had with Nikola Tesla that hadn't been interrupted by a dangerous abnormal, a secretive organisation attempting to take over the world, or the imminent destruction of the planet. So far, certainly, everything had gone swimmingly. The food was delicious, the wine fine – though, Nikola invariablycomplained, this century was _not_ one that would be known for its vintages – and the company delightful. They had bantered smartly, enjoying one another's teasing remarks, and Helen was amazed that she could still blush like a schoolgirl at the respectable age of two hundred and sixty-one.

If she were to remark upon this fact, however, she knew that neither of them would be able to come up with more remarkable a fact than the fact of their as-yet uninterrupted date. It had taken them twenty-seven years to reach this. Twenty-seven years of stolen moments, interrupted dates, and undisguised daydreams. Twenty-seven years filled with the blissful moment of waking up with Nikola's strong arms wrapped so tightly around her waist that she knew she would always be safe. Twenty-seven years since she had taken an awful leap of faith in offering Nikola her heart, and twenty-seven years in which she had been rewarded with happiness beyond measure for her faith in him.

Twenty-seven years in which he knew that the centuries he had waited for her had been worth it. Twenty-seven years that were proof that his faith in her love for him was as undying as his own. Twenty-seven years that made those centuries he had waited for her worth it a thousand times over.

Helen's comm-watch made the sound of a new holo-message coming in. She sighed, the gesture sounding more exasperated than she actually was, but Nikola's reaction was significantly more violent.

"God damn the children," he muttered. To his complete surprise, his date giggled, restrained at first but later growing into honest laughter as time passed and she couldn't bring herself to stop. He didn't understand why she was laughing so hard over such a simple comment, and she couldn't explain to him how wonderfully _protective_ he sounded when he chastised her subordinates at the Old City Sanctuary, like they were his own children he didn't want to admit had done something wrong, like they mattered to him as much as they did to her.

He would have teased her about imagining things, anyway.

She pressed a button, and Mel's face popped up in projection. "Hey, Doc, hope your date with vampy's going well–" At the mention of his much-despised nickname, Nikola groaned audibly. Despite the centuries and the indeterminate number of 'assistants' in between them, all of Helen's little monster-hunting gang seemed to be stuck in a permanent rut with their nicknames for him, and it was getting downright _obnoxious_. "–Just wanted to let you know there's been a minor abnormal sighting, nothing big, just something you might want to take a look at if you get the chance. It's in a park, so if you and Vlad want to take an evening stroll..."

The projection of the young woman's face was lit with a grin. Helen sighed and cut the projection, then turned her gaze upwards towards Nikola. "I know this isn't an emergency, but we _have_ finished eating and the coordinates are in a park right close by, and–"

"Let's go," he interrupted.

She stared at him blankly.

"I said, let's go," he repeated, gesturing for the waiter to bring the check. When he came over, Nikola waved his card at the entirely digitised system – which he may have had influence in the creation of, not that _someone_ sitting across the table would ever let him claim it for fear of "inciting a panic when someone supposed to be dead for centuries resurfaces" – and then turned back to look at his date, who was still staring blankly at him.

"You never want to go on unimportant investigations that interrupt our dates," she said suspiciously.

"Well, if twenty-seven years with you has taught me one thing, it's that the _children_ you keep around have no sense of common courtesy in leaving us time to ourselves."

Despite herself, Helen had to smile. True, the "children" could be bothersome, but for the most part the men and women they worked with had only been around when their relationship was a pre-established given, or had been the ones pushing them together in the beginning. With this in mind, she allowed Nikola to lead her out of the café, and in the direction of the park to which they were headed. However, the further they walked, the more she became suspicious. Hadn't Mel said the park was close by? And the coordinates hadn't been _that_ distant from their own...

She would have checked the route they were taking, but the hand with her comm-watch was carefully entwined in Nikola's, and, truth to be told, she rather enjoyed walking with her immortal lover through the cool evening.

Suddenly, they left the city streets and found themselves in a hidden park. It was vaguely familiar, in the way that most urban parks were, but there was also something _else_ that she couldn't quite pinpoint, that connected this part to a memory of a time long past.

Nikola seemed to know exactly where he was going, and she was too tired to be suspicious. He had clearly planned _something_ with the help of the "children", but she trusted him not to make it anything dangerous.

Or not _too_ dangerous – this was an immortal, power-hungry, brilliant, vampire magnet, after all.

When he stopped, she wasn't quite ready for it, and stumbled a little. He smiled at her, looking her over quickly to make sure that she was okay, and then brushed a curtain of leaves aside.

Helen stepped through the doorway and nearly cried.

Nikola slipped in behind her, leaning forward slightly to snake his arms around her waist and nestle his chin on her shoulder and his cheek in the loose brunette waves of her hair. "Like it?" he whispered softly.

Tears of gratitude slipped silently down her cheeks, and the vision before her eyes wavered. Still, the image of this sea of blossoms in front of her was not one she would easily forget. Hours of work – no doubt put in by Mel, Tet, and Lizzie while the couple was eating supper – had turned a tiny corner of this park into a room whose walls were made of countless peach blossoms and heliotrope flowers.

Helen turned around to give Nikola a good look, to thank him properly for what he had done to prove the love that time had more than already proven, but she couldn't make the words to tell him that she understood, and she had always understood. She was surprised, even after almost three decades of being on the receiving end of them, at the tenderness of his touch as he softly brushed the tears from her cheeks and planted delicate kisses where the streams of salty liquid had just run. "Don't cry, Helen," he whispered softly. "I love you."

At this, she dug her fingers into the hair at the back of his skull and pulled his lips to cover hers. They kissed passionately but softly, and soft tears poured from her eyes with the love that was just too much for her to keep inside. When Nikola felt the wetness drip onto his own cheeks, he pulled away and tried to gauge her expression. "What's wrong?" he finally had to ask, but she couldn't answer. She simply smiled at him through her tears. "Please don't cry, Helen. I can't stand to see you cry." He plucked a peach blossom from a cluster behind her head and tucked it in her hair behind her right ear. "You have captivated my heart since the moment I met you," he explained as he placed the flower in her hair. Then he picked a heliotrope from a patch of its kind, and placed that behind her left ear. "And as I have been faithful to you across all those centuries, I still will be now."

The tears fell more quickly down her face, but the smile never once faltered – it only grew. "I love you, Nikola," she said. "I love you," she repeated, this time concluding it with a light kiss on the lips. "I love you–" kiss "–I love you–" kiss "–I love you–" kiss.

He smiled broadly at her and then hugged her tightly, so tightly she wondered if her chest would burst with both the air in her longs and the love in her heart trying to work their way out.

When he finally let her go, he planted a soft kiss on the crown of her forehead, right on the edge of her hairline, and asked, "What would you like to do now?"

"Can we stay here for a while?" she asked, smiling shyly. He nodded, leading her to a bench in the middle of their small, private alcove. They sat down next to one another, and she snuggled into his shoulder. From some hidden pocket – she _still_ had no idea how he did it – he pulled out a bottle of wine, and she nearly laughed aloud. Trust _him_ never to be without a bottle, she mused privately. He showed her the label, and she _did _laugh aloud.

"What's so funny about the wine?"

"That was the bottle – well, not the _exact_ bottle, but an identical wine – that you gave me for 'killing' you."

She could see out of the corner of her eye that his lips curled downwards into a rather attractive frown: he had picked up on an important part of what she had said – or more specifically, _not_ said. "What did you do with that bottle?" he asked carefully.

After taking a breath to gather her courage, she answered, "I drank it on the night I was informed of your 'death'."

"All of it?"

She nodded.

"In one go."

She nodded again.

"By yourself."

She nodded for a third time.

"But why? You knew I wasn't dead."

She had to gather her courage before she could speak again, but this time, it was much easier. This time, she knew that as soon as she could get herself to start talking, the whole story would come tumbling out of her without hesitation, and even Nikola could sense that quite the admission was about to spring from her lips. "Yes, intellectually, I knew you weren't dead. Yet, at the same time, the part of me that knew you weren't dead also knew that I couldn't see you, not openly, for as long as there would be anyone alive who would yet be able to recognise you. In a way, it felt like my old friend had died that day, the day that I found out – for some time I wouldn't be able to talk to you, to confess to anyone what I had always been able to confess only to you, to have anyone understand me so intimately as you did – and still do. I lost a friend that day, and perhaps it was only the result of stress and the death and destruction already rampant from the war, but it was too much for me. I needed _one_ night in which to properly mourn the man I loved."

By the end of her rush of emotional words, tears were pouring down her face once more, and this time, he didn't even try to stop them. He knew he wouldn't be able to, so he simply held her close and let her cry until she couldn't anymore. When she was calmer, he popped open the wine and held it out to her. She downed a remarkable amount of it in one go before handing it back. She looked better than before, he thought; still upset, but better for having let out what she did.

"I propose a toast," she said finally.

"I believe we would need glasses for that," he pointed out cheekily. She slapped him half-heartedly, but she was smiling, if her face was still shimmering with old tears.

"To love," she proposed, "May it continue to guide us to the right decisions."

"Indeed," he replied, and stole her lips in a kiss.

When they broke apart a few moments later, she protested in a rather wonderfully flustered voice, "That wasn't what I meant!"

"No, but you can't say you didn't enjoy it."

He was right, she thought with a private grin. She could _never_ say that she didn't love his kisses.


End file.
